The scientific tourist #131 — Hawaiian petroglyphs

I took these pictures nearly 10 years ago, well before geotagging and other such GPS-driven pursuits were available — so I know I took them on the big island of Hawaii, but am not sure exactly where. Possibly at Pu’u Loa, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park — but more likely at the Puako petroglyph field. Honestly, I can’t be sure.

Regardless, they’re amazing to look at. The biggest fields of petroglyphs (called “k’i’i pohaku,” or images in stone) in Hawaii are found on the big island, and the Pu’u Loa field is the largest in all of Polynesia — containing in excess of 15,000 carvings.

A number of other, smaller fields are scattered throughout the Hawaiian Islands as well. The age of the images is hard to determine, but based on their stylistic evolution, the earliest examples are quite ancient.